Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star SATURDAY. JAN. 27, 1917 THE WEEK.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 January 1917, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star SATURDAY. JAN. 27, 1917 THE WEEK.

Tub Government cannot be charged ■with any remissness of duty in the desire to see the Military Service Act in complete operation. The Hon. Minister of Defence is certainly most active in every sphere of the ' work. This week additional Appeal Boards have been created to assist the machinery of the Act. There are two points that strike ns in this connection. The first is that in the long list of appointments no West Coasters are given a place. Just why West Coasters need not apply is not clear. The Coast has done its part manfully under the voluntary system, and there is no reason why its just claims for inclusion in the personnel of the Boards should not be considered. Perhaps the isolation of the Coast keeps it so much out of the way that it is easy for those who do not want to see, to overlook it. The absence of Coast representatives on the Boards is not singular in the matter of Government appointments. On the National War Funds Council there is not any representative, although the Coast provides the only ewe lamb for the Council to look after. The claims of the Coast for representation on important bodies of a national character are being ignored continually. There is the fact that the Coast has not any representative in the Upper House for years. In this connection a very deliberate wrong is being done the Coast if there is any virtue at all in constitutional government. The Coasters are loyal and they are patient. It is because of this submissive spirit that the powers that be do as they wish with a long-suffering people. The second point about these Appeal Boards is the enormous expense they must be upon the country. We hope, before the Minister of Defence plunged into the great extra cost involved by creating the additional Boards, he weighed the advantages as against the cost. We hear that money is short for this or that enterprise, and back-block settlers, who are the back-bone of the country, are put off in the matter of public works expenditure to serve some reproducing community. But under the Defence Act, expense is no object, and the expenditure goes on heaping up and up. It is not difficult to wonder where the money goes when we contemplate what these Appeal Boards must be costing the country. Unc! r the original scheme the cost was staggering, now it must be appalling. The same result could be achieved by a much shorter me-

thod, and certainly less costly. It is clear that the presiding Magistrate seems to “ run ” the business of tlie Boards, and the cheapest way would be to leave the task to the Magistrate wholly. This could be done without all the travelling about now indulged in, as in each centre the Magistrate could take up the appeals in his ordinary rounds. Under the Act, the Magistrates deal now with all territorial cases in the manner we

mention, and they do so very fairly and considerately. The same degree of justice would be forthcoming, we are persuaded, in regard to the appeals—and at an enormous saving to the country’s funds. Caution of the extreme character seams to mark the methods of the Government in dealing with many phases of the war. By the exercise of caution the Government appear to drift iato a way of doing things rather

than stalking onward with courage to a definite goal. We are told they are going to proceed cautiously in the matter of organisation. This is quite likely, for without the real heads of the National Government, those remaining behind do not appear equal to real policy measures when emergency calls. Emorgenoy is calling now in respeot to many phases of the war; but there is a tardiness in acticn» and apparently an unreal desire even to ehape a course for some definite goal. The progress of the war, and the demands likely to be made upon all countries involved in the great war, are snch that it would be wise to sst

an organisation policy in morion without delay. A peace with victory is what we are all bent on securing, and to hasten a decisive verdict it is fco'ish to allow matters to go on drifting and to hope for this or that to transpire in a fortunate way to help, suddenly, to end the war. It has been established for some time past th&tcn Britain is to fall the burden of winning the war. The accomplishment of the task will be exacting on our resources, and it is because of this that the need for organising action is so paipabK Caution is all very good, but we want courage combined with it if we are to move swiftly and

securely to the goal we wouid all win. The reply of Mr Bonar Law to President Wilson’s peace chatter was very adequate. It was brief and to the point, even mote eo than President Roosevelt’s comments on the in* action Mr Wilson to achieve the end he hoped for. The whole course of this war has made it plain that Germany knows no authority bat might. It is plain, then, that a peace without victory would leave an untamed Germany. The heinousness of the crimes of Germany and her dopes all through the war, cry out for a punishment which shall be nothing short of a complete mastery so that the world shall be free for all time ftom such another terror as Germany would be to the world at lirge. Besides the war has swung now into a conflict which shall decide whether might shall- bs right, and Mr Wilson’s ideals ore already set at naught by these set of circumstances obtaining in Europe fo-'-ay. What could have prompted the" present interposition it is haid to say. It was clearly not pro-Aily, nr for humanitarian reason’. Mr Wilson must be very ignorant of what this' German-m&da war is, and what it enforces on the people who suffer, if he is content to accept the position as it is, and give to Germany a peace at the present stage of eff lira. Thera - can be no peace of any lasting duration at this junoture withopt imperilling the whole future of humanity, unless German militarism ismanacLd once and fer all. Mr Bonar Law hss made it clear what we are fighting for and what we mean to have. It is enough for Britain to persist along these lines,